My wife Kasia and I are moving to a smallholding near her family farm in north east Poland. This website will be a kind of scrapbook where we will record the process of our planning, moving and starting to live and work there. We'll be asking questions and hopefully finding answers and friends along the way... So do join us!

Where

Friday, 28 February 2014

Resiliency and Regeneration Principles

I've just written my first review on Amazon. I know I shouldn't really use Amazon, but it is a good resource for checking things out and reading reviews, plus my account with them allows me to earn small referral fees - so if you buy a book after following a link from this site I can get a little closer to my dream (although so far I haven't earned enough in two years for them to bother sending me a cheque!).

For now I'm going to list Ben's Resiliency and Regeneration Principles. I really need to get these into my head, and do quite a lot of work and thinking through many of them, and this is the first stage for me. Of course you need to buy the book to read all his extra notes, I'm just going to list the headings.

Resiliency and Regeneration Design

Maximum outputs for minimum inputs

Transform dead matter into living

System establishment vs. system maintenance

Biological complexity, technological symplicity

Resilience = diversity x redundancy x connectivity x manageability

Regeneration metric = biomass and biodiversity

Facilitate the vital force

Human management = primary limiting factor

Stress as stimulus

Responsiveness, not habit

Human resource x site characteristics = ideal site design

All design should be modular

Structural diversity begets biological diversity

Habits of mind

Spread pulses

Disperse and extend fertility

Land as value distillation tool

Multiply functions from single expenditures (always do or get two or more results)

Moving things is entropy

Value across time

Essential functions provided by multiple elements

Simplest solution is the best solution

Efficiency does not equal resiliency

Increase diversity, don't reduce it

Quality-quantity relationship

Scale and proportions are the most difficult

Oil intervention

Probability x impact = risk

Niches in time

Zone 1 site mimic

Past is precedent

Resiliency and Regeneration Habits of Mind

Good design always empowers

Passive vs active observation

Observation action chronology

Two is one, one is none

Character of work over time of work

Immerse in abundance

Maximise site awareness

Embedding skills and practice in daily routine

Skills = most durable resource

Awareness limits action

Environment limits and manifests action

Solutions = alignment

Figure it out: try stuff

Miracles everywhere

Food and Fertility

Constant organic matter accumulation

Paths as biomass producers

Seed often and lightly

Passive forage-ability

Plant as densely as you can afford to

Animals above plants

Pee on plants (or next to plants)

Swales everywhere

Ecology and Management

Disturbance stimulates yield

Succession determined by disturbance and its aftermath

Fill open niches immediately

Systems establishment overshooting management capacity

Biology in place of technology

Annual-perennial balance in system

Modularity and agility

Ecosystem partnering, not stewardship

Partnering with vigour

Sculptable landscape

Native to when

Cheap tools are too costly

Quality of work affects labour and management capacity

Apply present resources now

Storage always runs out

House as water tower

House as dehydrator

Clarity points and leverage points in time

Principles are only useful if actually followed!

There are several things I like about this list. It is fairly familiar and comfortable for me, although it also contains quite a few new ideas, good reminders, and challenges. Some of the headings remind me of the sort of thing Christopher Alexander writes in his book A Pattern Language which I also love (and Ben quotes). And I like the mix of fairly obvious headings with some intriguing ones and others that seem wrong on the face of it until you read the notes.

Now I've typed all of these out I think I'll create a little spreadsheet for myself where I'll go through them and make extra notes that I need to think about for Orchardy Haven. I also need to read through this section of the book again to refresh my memory on some of the points. I'm sure I'll be returning to this book again and again over the coming years for inspiration and guidance.